Disaster Playground Screening at CCA

Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada, 28th January 2017

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Disaster Playground will be screening at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in association with The Phi Centre on the 28th January in Montreal, Canada.

The series is titled PHI X CCA It’s all happening so fast: a film series that questions some assumptions about our relationship to nature.

The Phi Centre and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) have recently announced a new partnership to screen a number of award-winning films as part of the CCA exhibition “It’s All Happening So Fast, A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment”

From now through April 20, 2017, cinemagoers and architecture buffs can enjoy two exclusive screenings per month shining the spotlight on the point where the seventh art and the environmental crisis become one. Both the new partnership with the CCA and the films selected for screening go hand in hand with the Phi Centre’s mission and its ecological position. “We are proud to uphold the Phi mission with audiences not just here at the Centre but also beyond our four walls,” says Penny Mancuso, president of the Phi Centre. “The Canadian Centre for Architecture is one of our favourite institutions in Montreal, and we have nothing but admiration for the contributions it makes to the cultural community. We’re honoured to be working with the CCA by screening two films there each month between now and April, and we’re really hoping cinemagoers will feel the benefits of this partnership.”

Cinematography and colliding worlds

January’s line-up kicks off at the CCA’s Paul Desmarais Theatre with two hard-hitting films on the bill. In the documentary When Two Worlds Collide, screening January 26, directors Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel expose the clash between environmental issues and the economic boom in Peru, all unfolding with the Amazon, under threat from deforestation, as the backdrop. The film won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance 2016.

Cinemagoers can also feast their eyes on Disaster Playground, screening January 28. In this post-modern, tongue-in-cheek documentary, director Nelly Ben Hayoun follows the scientists in charge of monitoring and deflecting asteroids on a potential collision course with the earth. Disturbing, but necessary viewing, the film was part of the official selection of SXSW 2015.

“When we think about the ecology of the planet or our web of relationships with nature it is too easy to think abstractly. Cinema brings these issues home to the kitchen table and to the couch. Abstract questions become intimate, familiar, and uncomfortable. That is very good.” Says Lev Bratishenko, CCA Curator, Public. “We are excited for the partnership with PHI to continue the conversation that has begun in the galleries and in the book.”

Phi

Dedicated to art in all its forms, Phi is a multidisciplinary arts and culture organisation that cultivates all aspects of creation, development, production and dissemination. Phi is at the intersection of art, film, music, design and technology. Through eclectic programming and a strong emphasis on content creation, Phi fosters unexpected encounters between artists and audiences. Headquartered at the Phi Centre in Montreal Canada, Phi was created by Director and Founder Phoebe Greenberg.

The CCA is an international research centre and museum founded on the conviction that architecture is a public concern. Based on its extensive collection, exhibitions, public programs, publications and research opportunities, the CCA is advancing knowledge, promoting public understanding, and widening thought and debate on architecture, its history, theory, practice, and role in society today.